1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to a method for monitoring user engagement with computer interfaces, and more particularly to an applet and method for providing acknowledgment and usage data to a data originator after a web page, an electronic advertisement or other user interface is engaged by a user.
2. Description of Related Art
As Internet-based electronic commerce begins to truly flourish, the web of connections between companies, their suppliers, partners and ultimately their customers is catapulting beyond today""s mere hyperlinks. All Internet users agree that the usage of the Internet is growing on a worldwide basis. In fact, few would disagree with the view that the consolidation of worldwide networks is destined to continue. Furthermore, price reductions in telecommunications bandwidth and processing devices are continuing to incite an explosion of Internet usage.
In contrast to the current proliferation of Internet usage, the early use of the Internet was simply to have a means for the academic and government research facilities and institutions to share electronic documents and communications with each other. The content of these Internet pioneers was mostly text based information; simple e-mail, file transfers, and text based documents. However, with the developments of the World Wide Web (WWW) and graphical Internet browsers, people are able to share and exchange richly formatted electronic documents complete with graphics and hyperlinks.
This in turn led to the extension of these new information delivery vehicles beyond academia to include individual consumers and businesses. As would be expected, many visions of using the Internet for business and entertainment purposes have emerged. As the demand for the new technology has grown for both its entertainment value and as a tool for businesses, the HTML documents specification has been extended to handle different content types; including digital audio, video, distributed applications, and dynamic document generation from existing data formats and relational databases.
One of the fastest growing areas for the use of the Internet is the framing of content with advertising. Advertising is used to sell a product promoted in the advertisement to a computer user that is accessing the database providing the content. However, for such advertising data, and for some other types of information as well, it is very useful for the advertiser and/or the information provider to collect information about the people who have accessed a particular database. For example, the advertiser would find it useful to know how many people accessed the computerized database, their usage characteristics, their identity, etc.
One way the frequency of access on the Internet is determined at present is by simply counting the number of xe2x80x9chitsxe2x80x9d on a particular page. However, it is well known that some computers are set to automatically access a web page, for example, at a particular time each day.
In WWW terms, a cache is a place where temporary copies of objects are kept. Essentially, once a URL has been cached, subsequent requests for it will be given the cached copy. Some WWW browsers implement their own caches on disk and/or in memory. These are usually done according to schemes which are specific to the browser in question, and a cache created this way tends to be at best visible only to other users of the same browser, and at worst only visible to the user who created it.
By contrast, network cache servers provide a shared cache facility which can be accessed from the vast majority of WWW browsers. A small configuration change to the browser is usually all that is necessary to take advantage of the networked cache, and the cached information will be available to everyone who has their browser configured to use the cache server.
Caching WWW traffic offers a number of benefits, notably faster performance on cached URLs and cached resources will be available in the time taken to connect to the cache server, and have the browser""s request processed. This can be very useful in situations where response times need to be kept low, such as product demonstrations and courses/tutorials. Caching WWW traffic also reduces the amount of bandwidth used and places less demand on servers. Further, frequently accessed resources may be a long distance (topologically speaking) from the user. If the resource has been cached, access to it will only incur the cost of a connection to the cache server. Finally, since requests which are satisfied from the cache will not be passed on to the remote server, the amount of work the server is required to do may be substantially reduced.
However, caching is not without problems. In particular, slower performance occurs if the object isn""t cached. For example, a performance penalty is imposed when the cache server has to connect to the target server and request a copy of the resource. Caching also may cause objects sometimes get mangled. For example, if the target server becomes unreachable, or drops the connection before the object has been fully downloaded, the copy returned by the cache may be incomplete or garbled. Although there is a mechanism for refreshing the cached copy of the resource, the refresh mechanism is not universally supported. Finally, caching causes confused logging and access control. Most logging and access control is done on the basis of the requesting machine""s domain name or IP address. If networked caching has been deployed, the details of the machine which is really requesting the resource will be replaced with the cache servers.
Thus, barriers, such as web caching, mask the number of accesses to data and the identity of the actual requester/receiver of data. As a result, publishers, advertisers and others who charge for or pay by the number of accesses to data cannot receive the full financial benefit because of the masking effect.
It can be seen that there is a need for a method and apparatus that unmasked a user""s accessing of a web page, an electronic advertisement or other user interface.
It can also be seen that there is a need for an applet and method for providing acknowledgment and usage data to a data originator after a web page, an electronic advertisement or other user interface is engaged by a user.
To overcome the limitations in the prior art described above, and to overcome other limitations that will become apparent upon reading and understanding the present specification, the present invention discloses a method for ensuring that usage information concerning a web site or advertisement is provided to an originator of data or advertising.
The present invention solves the above-described problems by providing an applet and method for providing acknowledgment and usage data to a data originator after a web page, an electronic advertisement or other user interface is engaged by a user.
A method in accordance with the principles of the present invention includes embedding an applet within accessible code, executing the applet upon access of the accessible code, returning user related information, such as the address of the user, to the originator of the accessible code.
Other embodiments of a system in accordance with the principles of the invention may include alternative or optional additional aspects. One such aspect of the present invention is that the accessible code is an advertisement.
Another aspect of the present invention is that the method further includes gathering additional information and waiting until a triggering event occurs before returning the additional information and the identity of the user.
Another aspect of the present invention is that the triggering event includes closing of data associated with the accessible code being viewed by the user.
Another aspect of the present invention is that the triggering event includes viewer movement to another space.
Another aspect of the present invention is that the additional information includes how long the space was viewed, the number of other links accessed, and the identification of other similar links accessed.
These and various other advantages and features of novelty which characterize the invention are pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed hereto and form a part hereof. However, for a better understanding of the invention, its advantages, and the objects obtained by its use, reference should be made to the drawings which form a further part hereof, and to accompanying descriptive matter, in which there are illustrated and described specific examples of an apparatus in accordance with the invention.